


Name One Hero Who Was Happy

by Who_Needs_Reality



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 13:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10190672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: Clarke huffs again, and he glances at her.“The Curse of Achilles, Bellamy? Do you know howriskythat was?”“I got the idea when I felt my soul being torn from my body.”She sniffs, imperious. “How did you do it?”“Huh?”Her voice is smaller when she speaks again. “How did you...not get your soul...y’know?”“Oh,” he swallows. “I had some help.”{Bellarke in a Percy Jackson/The Last Olympian AU}





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bella_my_clarke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bella_my_clarke/gifts).



> This one goes out to my fave, [Tate](http://sherlockvowsontheriverstyx.tumblr.com), the only other person who seems to spend as much time asphyxiating over Bellarke/Percabeth parallels as I do. Also, writing this fic gave me an excuse to revisit several Percabeth [quotes](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/637157-it-s-okay-he-said-we-re-together-he-didn-t-say-you-re) and cry over how well they fit Bellarke.
> 
> Also, I realise I didn't actually do a great job of explaining what the Curse of Achilles is in the fic, but basically it's the fact that if you bathe in the River Styx and don't get instantly atomised you become invulnerable. In the Illiad, Achilles is invulnerable everywhere except his heel because that never entered the water; in PJO, anyone who bathes in the Styx has to choose a spot on their bodies to ~tether them to the mortal world~. Mythology is fun, kids.

If you’d asked him, Bellamy would definitely have said “hard pass” to bathing in the River Styx. He’s read The Illiad enough times to know that bearing the curse of Achilles isn’t exactly a no-strings-attached situation. Gods, they call it a _curse_ , and it’s not like he hasn’t been through enough weird Greek shit over the course of his life to understand that pretty much nothing to do with demigod life is simple. But someone has to do it, and if someone _has_ to risk having their soul burned to nothing by the Underworld’s river of the damned, then he’d rather it be him than any of his friends. 

“Okay,” he nods at Roan, “let’s do this.”

“ _You_ get to do this,” he smirks, “I’m good here.” He smirks an awful lot for the offspring of the literal God of the Underworld and a woman who Bellamy is like ninety-eight percent sure is a mob boss.

“Whatever. Do I just dive in?” That is, after all, his usual game plan for bodies of water.

“If you want to condemn yourself to an eternity spent swimming round with the souls of the damned, then sure.”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

“Enter the water _carefully_. It’ll hurt, that’s just your mortality burning away.”

“Naturally.”

“You have to focus on one spot on your body--”

“To tether myself to the mortal world, got it.”

“Gold star for you.”

Bellamy eyes the water. He tries to tell himself that it’s no different than any of the springs and seas his father controls, but, well. It’s jet black and the screaming faces of condemned souls are floating through it’s currents so that’s not really working. “Here goes nothing.”

He wades in and _fuck_ it really burns. This does not feel like a situation where he’s supposed to go in deeper, but he has to, so he does, further and further until the water of the Styx is up his nose, his eyes, in his throat. It’s burning, everything is burning, he’s wasting away like a dry log in a forest fire, he can feel the river coursing around him but it feels like flames instead of water, the souls of the damned are screaming, and now he’s drowning, he can feel himself unspooling from existence. He can _see_ his memories as they’re ripped from him: clutching Octavia’s hand as he tugs her through a back alley whilst a monster they don’t even believe can be real chases them; his mother shouting “ _Look after her Bell! Your sister, your responsibility! I love you--_ ” as she’s ripped from his grasp into the Underworld; his Classics teacher Mr Kane revealing he’s really the centaur Chrion; his hands curling into fists as his twelve-year-old self walks into “Camp Half-Blood,” convinced the name is another one of the sick jibes people throw his way when they see he’s darker than his sister; the day he and Octavia were both claimed but by different fathers and he’d never felt more alone...

“Bellamy.”

The first time he held a sword, the weight unfamiliar in his grip; Miller throwing him a wry smirk when he catches him picking pockets during cabin inspections; the surge of power that hit him when he got splashed ocean water...

“Bellamy, hey.”

Watching Raven come out of the Hephaestus cabin for the first time since her leg was wounded in a Titan attack and no amount of ambrosia and nectar could fix it, hobbling with grim determination in a brace she made herself; crouching behind the trees during Capture the Flag; swallowing the lump in his throat when he made his way to the Oracle for the prophecy that apparently dictated his whole life...

“Listen to me, dumbass.”

“Clarke?” The haze of memories stills and he can see clearly again. She crouching by the side of the lake--the lake? but yeah, he looks around and he’s home, it’s the canoeing lake at Camp Half-Blood--holding her hand out and grinning.

“You’re the Son of Poseidon, can’t you put some of your magic water skills to use when you fall in, instead of just thrashing around like an idiot?”

He lets her help him out, a little dazed, but everything feels steadier and steadier by the minute. _Clarke_. She’s here.

“You have to focus, remember?” her voice is teasing, gentle. “Tether to the mortal world.”

“Right,” he croaks. 

She takes his hand, laces their fingers together. “You got this, Bellamy.”

He squeezes her hand and closes his eyes, thinking of a spot on the small of his back. He can feel her hand in his, small but sure, and then he _feels_ the tethering, a slight pinch at the spot he’s focusing on, then a pulling, and then--

“Welcome back.”

Bellamy gasps as he staggers out of the river, almost collapsing against Roan. He shakes his head to clear it and to confirm that yeah, he’s still in the Underworld, he did just submerge himself in the Styx, and he is still alive.

Roan throws him a cursory glance. “I thought you'd probably die,” he says conversationally and without any real malice.

“Next time,” Bellamy stands up straighter. He doesn’t feel _that_ different, but there is something, a slight electricity to the air around him, the faintest glow, that makes him think it worked. “I’ve still got shit to do.”

***

Bellamy spends most of the journey back to New York trying and failing not to examine the implications of the fact that in his mind “tether to the mortal world” and “Clarke” are apparently deeply intrinsically linked, which is, well, whatever, except it means he _forgets_ his more immediate concern. Which is that he may have neglected to tell Clarke what he was doing.

Clarke, as it happens, has not forgotten. There’s a bit of a welcoming committee when he and Roan get back to the hotel they’re using as a base, though Bellamy suspects that that’s got more to do with the general fascination everyone has for Pauna the Friendly Hellhound than it does with him. Nonetheless, he’s greeted by a generally enthusiastic chorus of “you’re alive!” and “hey the world hasn’t ended yet,” until someone furious and blonde shoves aside the gathered demigods and stalks right up to him.

“Where the _fuck_ ” she hisses “did you _go_?”

“Hey,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m back?”

She inhales sharply as she surges forward, and for a second, Bellamy thinks she might punch him. Instead, she throws her arms around him and _tugs_ , wrapping him close to her. There’s a scuffling noise as the other scatter away, but Bellamy lets himself breathe her in, nosing at her hair. “Hey,” he says again. “I’m sorry.”

She wrenches back again. “Sorry?” she snaps “you’re _sorry_? What the fuck is wrong with you?” You just up and _vanished_ , in the middle of a _war_. I had to find out you and Roan had ridden off on a hellhound to Gods know where from _Jasper_!”

“Clarke,” he says, and his throat feels a little dry, “I’m fine. It’s okay. I’m here.” He lets himself reach out and brush her hair behind her ears. She closes her eyes and lets out a shuddering breath, leaning into his touch. 

“You asshole,” she murmurs. Her eyes open again. “So are you gonna tell me what you were up to?”

 _Shit_. “Um.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Wait. Something’s...different.” Clarke leans back, her hands on his shoulders as she examines him, and she suddenly goes rigid. “Bellamy Blake, tell me you did not bathe in the Styx.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“ _Bellamy_! Are you fucking _serious_?”

“I had to do _something_ , Princess!” he yells, “it was the only way we’re going to be able to make any progress!”

“You can’t just waltz off and _decide--_ ”

“Clarke!” He shakes his head. “I’m--I made it, okay? I’m fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you’d have tried to stop me.”

“Damn right I would have.” She still looks mad, but the tension in her back has eased away.

“Okay. So, fill me in--what have I missed?”

“The Titan’s have got us surrounded, pretty much. We had an opening at the corner of fifth, but they sent the Minotaur.”

“Of course they did.” He wets his lips. “And the gods--what about them?”

She sighs. “They’re fighting. But it’s--it’s not good. We need more.”

“Any good news?”

She shrugs. “Kind of? The Hunters are here.”

Bellamy winces. Clarke has an awkward history with Lexa, the leader of the Hunters, in that she and Lexa used to date, until Lexa one day announced without warning that she was going to become the Captain of the Hunters of Artemis, and as such would have to end their relationship. Hurting Clarke had already been enough of a black mark against her in Bellamy’s book, but the selfish part of him was even more pissed when Lexa had offered Clarke a place in her ranks a year ago. Pissed and terrified. She hadn’t accepted the position, thank the Gods, but he sometimes wonders if she wishes she had. “We need the backup,” he says. “And O? How’s she doing?”

“Ares Cabin are taking care of a Chimera on Madison, and last I heard, Octavia was kicking some ass.”

He nods, as reassured as he can be. 

Clarke huffs again, and he glances at her. 

“The Curse of Achilles, Bellamy? Do you know how _risky_ that was?”

“I got the idea when I felt my soul being torn from my body.”

She sniffs, imperious. “How did you do it?”

“Huh?”

Her voice is smaller when she speaks again. “How did you...not get your soul...y’know?”

“Oh,” he swallows. “I had some help.”

***

Bellamy isn’t really sure _how_ the whole Achilles Invulnerability thing works, but it _works_. He throws himself into the thick of the battle, and nothing touches him. Swords glance off the air around him, and the talons and claws of the creatures around him always miss his skin. He doesn’t even break a sweat as he battles his way through the melee; he’s a force of nature really, taking out what feels like dozens of monsters with single swoops of his sword. He can see Clarke in the corner of his peripheral vision, her blonde hair and bronze hunting knife both glinting and flashing as she whirls against the onslaught of attackers. 

It’s a pretty successful night’s battle, he has to admit, and they make it back to base--not _happy_ , this is a war and the world might fall to chaos so, yeah--but more optimistic than they have been since this whole thing started.

“See,” he bumps Clarke’s shoulder, “swimming in curse water worked out fine. Ten out of ten would recommend. I’m thinking of leaving a really nice Yelp review.”

She snorts like she doesn’t want to but can’t help it, which is pretty much his favourite way of making her laugh. “I stand by the fact that it was a stupid, dangerous, reckless decision that could have killed you.”

“We’re literally at _war_ , lots of things could kill me. I’m pretty sure Lexa would be down to kill me.”

She huffs at him, pauses to confer about a strategy detail with one of her siblings from the Athena cabin. “If you die, I’ll kill you myself,” she tells him.

He smiles, and it’s a good thing she’s avoiding his gaze because if she looked at him there’s no _way_ she won’t work out exactly how he feels about her. 

“I’m going to go check on the med bay,” she says, “try not to die while I’m gone.”

“That’s what I took this Curse on for,” he reminds her, “ninety-nine percent guarantee of not dying.”

***

It’s easy to be, if not happy, at least broadly thankful that he took on the curse. Their troops are tiny, just forty-or so demigod campers with whatever satyr or centaur allies they can muster up. The Titans have, well. They have a mythologically proportioned force full of monsters, giants, scary-ass creatures that hate the gods, and, you know, _actual fucking Titans_. This is Bellamy’s life now. But yeah, having an invulnerable son of Poseidon amongst the Camp Half-Blood ranks definitely helps, so even if Bellamy doesn’t love that he’s the subject of a prophecy about a kid who's going to help either save or destroy Olympus--and the world by extension--or that they’re a bunch of kids (their youngest fighter, Charlotte, is _eight_ ) laying their lives down for their godly parents, most of whom don’t really give a fuck about their half-human offspring as more than tools, being useful _helps_. He never could shake off the feeling that this war was on some level his fault, what with the prophecy and all, and whilst his water powers are cool and have always helped, they never _really_ gave his side an edge the way this so-called Curse has. So he’s grateful for it.

Until of course the day he finds himself face-to-face with Ilian Trishana. The guy’s a kid, probably about thirteen, but there’s a naked rage on his face that ages him. Bellamy’s stomach twists when he sees him. Ilian’s godly parent is Nemesis, goddess of revenge, and he’s one of the demigods that deflected to the Titan army because their parents were minor gods, and neither they nor their children got any respect from Olympus or Camp Half-Blood. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Bellamy says, because killing grotesque monsters from hell is one thing, but killing a kid like this, one who looks like someone Bellamy could have grown up with? That’s different. The thrum of battle rages around him, he can see his friends facing off against creatures the size of ten men.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure now that the son of the great _Poseidon_ has condescended to speak to me I’ll just lay down my arms and we can all be friends,” his words are sarcastic but his voice is ripped, like an open wound.

“That’s not--I know how it feels, okay? Before I found Camp and got claimed? I was on the streets, Ilian, I had to protect my sister and I by myself, I thought no one cared about me--”

“Fuck you,” he spat, “fuck your sob story.” And then he lunges. Bellamy moves quickly, parrying Ilian’s wicked-looking knife with his sword, and flips the guy. Ilian kicks upwards, swinging a punch at him, raw and hungry. The brawl only ends when Bellamy finally lands a punch that knocks Ilian to the ground, leaving his nose bleeding. He could deliver the killing blow now, but he just turns choosing to direct his efforts elsewhere. 

He feels rather than sees Ilian surge up again, and knows, somehow, that Nemesis’s son’s knife is arcing towards the one spot on Bellamy’s body where it can land. The small of his back goes cold, and Bellamy doesn’t have time to move before the knife lands its target.

Except that it doesn’t. He had closed his eyes, waiting for the fatal blow to land, but he opens them now, turning sharply to understand _why_ the knife never came. And his heart goes cold. She’s folded over on the ground, gasping slightly with pain. Ilian’s knife protrudes from her shoulder, the flesh around it torn and bloodied. Ilian is nowhere to be seen, but Bellamy barely registers that as he drops to his knees and gathers her up in his arms as gently as he can with her injury and his trembling hands.

“Clarke,” he breathes, throat closing. “ _Clarke_. What did you do?”

“Isn’t it-- _ah_ \--obvious?” she winces, the words coming stuttered and unsteady. “Saving--your ass.”

He can’t laugh, just drops his head for a second, before gathering himself. “We have to get you help. Hang on, okay? We’re getting you help.”

He doesn’t know if she could manage walking back to the Hotel, but he doesn’t want to risk it, and doesn’t want to let go of her, not when holding her and feeling her weight against him is his only assurance that she’s alive.

“Nyko!” he yells as they stumble into the Hotel lobby. “We need you.”

The centaur clops forward, examines her with a clinical eye, ushering Bellamy towards the old bar room they’ve converted into a med bay.

“She was stabbed,” Bellamy’s throat feels like sandpaper. “Took a knife--for me. To the shoulder.” He helps Nyko hoist her into a bed and staggers backwards a little. “She’s going to be okay, right? You have to help her. She has to be okay.”

“The blade was poisoned,” Nyko says, and Bellamy feels bile rise in his throat when he sees the edges of Clarke’s wound are tinged sickly green. She’s thankfully unconscious, so she doesn’t stir when Nyko pulls out the blade. “Feverish too. I can do my best, but I’ll need supplies.”

Bellamy shakes himself, then nods. “Yeah. Yeah okay.” He gets a couple of Hermes kids and gives them a list of stuff Nyko needs so they can go raid a pharmacy or something. Thankfully for Bellamy’s mental health, they work quickly and are back in 10 minutes. Nyko does some stuff with a mixture of mortal medicine and some herbs he keeps with him, eventually coming up with a silver paste that he applies to Clarke’s wound and bandages, muttering what Bellamy recognizes as a hymn to Apollo.

Nyko glances at him. “You’ll stay with her?”

The battle is still in full swing, but. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Nyko nods. “Hopefully, she will awaken within the hour. If she does, give her a little ambrosia and nectar.”

It’s hard to say what exactly the worst hour of Bellamy’s life is, because the lives of demigods tend to suck all-round, but this one definitely ranks. He can’t keep _still_ , his leg jiggling or his fingers drumming, and there’s a nervous buzzing in his ears that won’t go away.

“You’re cute when you’re worried,” a voice croaks, and he jolts upright.

“Oh,” he buries his face in his hands. “Oh thank gods, you’re alive.”

“Yeah. The details are a little hazy--I took a knife, right?”

“To the shoulder.” He swallows. “For me. Trishana was going for me. And you--you _took_ _it_.”

“Pretty dumb of me, huh?” she chuckles softly, grasping for his hand, squeezing his fingers when he gives it. “Pretty sure I should know better than to try give my life for someone who can’t be injured.” There’s something off in her voice that makes Bellamy look at her.

“He was going to hit it,” his voice comes out rough, “my Achilles spot. If you--if you hadn’t taken that knife for me, I’d be dead.” He scrubs his free hand over his face.

“Oh,” she breathes, and looks contemplative. 

“Did you--did you know?”

“Hm?”

“My Achilles spot--did you know where it was?”  
Her brow furrows, and he fights off the urge to smooth it with his thumb. “I...had a feeling. I just...” she shakes her head and worries her lip, looking away. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me? _Me_? _You’re_ glad _I’m_ not dead?” he splutters, and he grabs her other hand too. “Listen to me, Clarke, don’t you ever do that again, alright? I just...never in any world will I be prepared for that?”

She rolls her eyes at him, before letting out a wracking cough that reminds him to hand her the ambrosia and nectar. As he turns to pick up the tray, he feels a shiver on the small of his back, and realises she’s brushing it with her fingers, just under his shirt.

“This is it?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he hopes she can’t hear the cracks in his voice. “That’s what’s keeping me tethered to the mortal world.”

***

Soon, Clarke gets back on her feet. Soon after that, they win the war. It doesn’t feel much like a victory, though the Gods insist on pomp and fanfare. The demigods mainly just want to bury their dead. He, Clarke, Octavia, and a few others get summoned to Olympus. Once, it would have intimidated him, alarmed him, but no longer. They saved the Gods, he and his friends. They’ll be okay. There’s a strange quietness in returning to Camp-Half Blood that day. He doesn’t go back to the Poseidon cabin, which is too empty and too lonely, even for the peace and quiet he wants. He goes to the dining pavilion instead, sits on one of the benches, gazing aimlessly into the horizon until Clarke slips in next to him, bumps his shoulder with her own.

“Hey,” he smiles at her.

“Hey,” she says, smiling back in a way that steals his breath a little. “Happy Birthday.”

He blinks.

“It’s the most important part of the prophecy, remember?” She laughs. “Everything would go down on your eighteenth birthday?”

“Can you blame me for not making _my birthday_ the number one priority today?”

She smirks. “Well, what _is_ your number one priority?”

“You’re alive,” he answers, automatic, “and okay. And we’re together.” The response is natural enough that he doesn’t really panic when it slips out, just watches carefully to see her reaction.

“You’re a sap,” she declares.

“This is true.”

Clarke bites her lip. “Can I ask you something? On Olympus, the Gods...your reward...”

He sighed. The Gods had offered to make him immortal, in exchange for his service to Olympus, his help winning the war. Immortal, eternally youthful--a god.

“Why didn’t you take it?”

There are many answers he could give. That it felt wrong to take something when he knew that others had given far more than he had, that he was only getting this honour because the prophecy was about him, Poseidon’s son. That he struggled with the idea of facing another _week_ trying to sleep with the nightmares that plagued him after every drop of blood he’d shed, let alone an eternity. That eternity sounded bleak and empty and wholly unappealing when there were people he couldn’t take with him.

“Didn’t you hear?” is what he goes with, “immortality is overrated.”

She laughs softly, then swallows. “I’m glad you turned it down.”

Bellamy looks at her, knows that either or both of them could drop dead tomorrow, or in a week, or in eighty years. Knows they’ll be alive in the interim. They’ll live. “Yeah,” he says, “so am I.”

They sit in a moment’s companionable silence before she speaks. “You said you’re happy we’re together.”

“Actually, I said it was my priority for today. But yeah.”

She snorts. “Dick.” A pause. “We could be more together?”

“What, like make a blood pact? or friendship bracelets? matching tattoos--”

She huffs and tugs on his shirt, pulling him into a kiss. It’s soft and warm and they melt together, and as his arms come up around her, wind around her waist and tangle in her hair, he feels the world start to right itself. Clarke makes a soft, happy noise into his mouth, and he knows that the aftermath of the War is something that will take a long time to recover from, that will leave them a lot to rebuild. But her hand grazes up the small of his back and the ridges of his spine, and she smiles, radiant, when he pulls back to look at her, and yeah. It’ll take time. But they’ll be fine. He has a good feeling about it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make the world go round <3


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